Which Presidential Candidates Are Stepping It Up to Halt Climate Change? [View All]

[babylonsister]

http://alternet.org/columnists/story/65957/

Which Presidential Candidates Are Stepping It Up to Halt Climate Change?

By Bill McKibben, Grist Magazine. Posted October 23, 2007.

Three presidential candidates just got on board with the Step It Up campaign.


You can advance many great arguments against making Iowa and New Hampshire the bellwethers of our political life: they are pale, unrepresentative, rural, and obsessed with a few issues (the price of corn has doubled in the last year due to the ethanol boom, which in turn is due to the Iowa caucus).

But one argument that their backers always make rings true as well: in an America so oversized that politics takes on an entirely abstract feeling, in these two states the presidential candidates actually engage with citizens. The New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucus offer the only punctures in the airless sphere that is high-level American political life -- the only chance for regular people to get inside for a moment.

What do I mean? Here's what I mean:

At noon last Saturday, a few of us were sitting around the Step It Up 2 offices along Elm St. in Manchester, N.H., eating a lunch we'd carried in from a nearby diner. We looked out the window, and there was Dennis Kucinich peering in at our signs and banners.

Lindsay Franklin grabbed the Flip camera and ran out on the sidewalk where she asked him if he'd come to one of the Step It Up events on Nov. 3 and give a talk. Sure, he said -- and with that we had our first commitment from a presidential candidate.

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Before the day was out, we'd also heard from John Edwards, who promised to join our big New Orleans rally, complete with brass band, second-line march, and a front-row view of the big trouble that can be caused by global warming and bad government.

In other words, we've got real momentum starting to pick up.

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http://alternet.org/columnists/story/65957/